DENVER, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A Colorado woman filed suit over her son's death from asthma, charging he was mistakenly denied Medicaid for the drugs he needed to control the disease.
The plaintiffs named in Zuton Lucero-Mills' lawsuit include the city and county of Denver and three employees of the county Department of Human Services, The Denver Post reported. She said she called the department over and over in 2009, trying to straighten out the bureaucratic snafu after pharmacists at Walgreen's said her son, Zumante, was not eligible for Medicaid coverage.
Zumante died at 9 in July 2009, several months after he stopped taking Advair, an anti-inflammatory drug that helped keep his asthma under control.
"I want this not to be the story of anyone else's family," Lucero-Mills said. "Something has to change."
Lucero-Mills said that after her phone calls she would get documents in the mail showing Zumante's prescriptions were covered by Medicaid. But when she went to Walgreen's she would be told he was not in the system.
